Leaderboard Zone

Earlier today I moderated a panel at an energetic and well-attended event called the “Newfront,” produced by Digitas, an innovative agency which counts American Express, Kraft, P&G, and GM as clients.

I say energetic because it was highly produced and very considered (and this from a guy who carefully produces live events for a living, among other things). A lot of flash, and deep consideration of lighting, music, and red carpet treatment of star guests (there were many). In short, the place was lovingly festooned with the kind of attention to detail that makes people feel special, just for being there.

Since I was a speaker, I got whisked past the lines and through the photo pit into the backstage lounge, where I commenced to review the work ahead of me: To lead what might have been the most practical discussion of the entire day: a conversation about how real brands leveraged content as marketing. Now, this is a subject with which I have a fair bit of familiarity, and all the panelists were clients of Federated Media (and no, I didn’t pick them). Susan Sobbott, the President of American Express OPEN, for example. Beth Comstock, the CMO of GE. And Susan Kopper, SVP Marketing at SAP. My job was to get them talking for a full hour in front of 500 or so folks who had just heard Ashton Kutcher rant about how he disliked advertising, and who, after we were finished, were eagerly awaiting a discussion with Tori Spelling.

No, I am not making that up.

Thanks in the main to my panelists, the conversation went quite well. I’d write it up, but the whole thing was livestreamed, and honestly, after six hours on the tarmac at JFK (again, not kidding), I want to tell a different story.

And yes, the six hours on the tarmac is part of it.

So during our conversation onstage, I asked my panelists if they considered the back and forth between a brand and its customers on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as “content,” and if the answer was yes, then if they considered themselves publishers of that content. The consensus was that yes, brands in fact are publishers of conversations (finally, my 2007 ideas are happening…). “But,” one of my panelists pointed out, “if you are going to become a publisher, then you have to actually be listening and responding to the conversations out there.” Indeed. I nodded (sagely, of course) from my moderator’s chair. Then without thinking, I quipped that brands, in the main, have not proven to be so hot at listening. (Here’s proof.)

And for reasons I can’t explain, I had to call at least one brand out to prove my point. And who came to mind? Well, honestly, it was United Airlines.

Now, this is the very company that has held my mortal coil in its aluminum wrapper for the past seven and a half hours, and, as far as I can tell, is responsible for either my long delayed reunion with my loved ones in five or so hours, or, should it fail miserably, will be…well, I’d rather not think about what else might happen. I am, as I write this, 35,000 feet in the air, after all.

But thanks to the wifi on the flight, I can tell you about all this. Not that the wifi was free….

But I digress as usual. Back to my story. I looked over the audience and asked “how many of you have lodged a customer complaint over Twitter?” About 15 percent of the hands went up. I then asked how many of them felt like they had been heard. About half the hands went down.

That will and must change.

I then called out the aforementioned @united as a personal example of a company I’ve repeatedly reached out to on Twitter, a company that purports to be active on the service, but so far has failed to really “be” on Twitter, at least the way ATT, Comcast, GE, Amex, or any number of other major brands are.

All well and good. The panel continued, folks seemed to enjoy it, from what I could tell, and after saying hello to far too many old friends, I headed to the airport. I was in a good mood – after four days on the road (including leading a successful CM Summit), it was time to go home.

And while there was traffic on the way to JFK (tweet), I made it in time for my plane. I got through security and settled in, ready for the six-or-so-hour journey home.

As I often do when home is tantalizingly close, my seatbelt is securely fastened, and the plane is about to take off, I dozed off in anticipation of the upward lift which comprises a transcontinental journey’s opening act.

As I nodded off, a daydream of sorts came to me. I imagined a world, not so distant, where our social utterances have impact….

It’s hard to explain without a fair amount of literary license, but if you are this far into my story, what the hell, right?

OK, so I imagined that as I called @united out onstage today, and that call out was amplified (via Twitter) by various folks in the audience, there was, in fact, someone at United listening. Further, I imagined that that person had access to all the touchpoints with United that I have as a customer.

In short, I imagined that United was listening to me, even though I was speaking at what, to United, was a pretty random conference in lower Manhattan. I mean, it’s rather presumptuous of me to assume that a brand might catch wind of my calling them out, right? After all, it happens all the time, all over the world, no?

Or is it?

What if the world were wired in such a way that every utterance that each of made had real meaning, and, further, that we as the creators of that utterance understood that fact?

In other words, what might happen if I knew that United was listening when I spoke those words on stage at the NewFront?

Well, as I dozed, I did imagine it. After all, at the moment I was on United Flight 863, which was slowly pulling out of Terminal 7 at JFK, purportedly on its way to San Francisco.

So here’s what came to mind.

As I entered JFK and checked in at the United counter, the man behind the counter addressed me by name – before I even handed him my ID – and apologized for United’s lack of responsiveness. “We missed your call out at that conference,” he said. “Hate to make excuses, but our Twitter guy was offline with a personal issue. I wish our UA team had texted you with an apology but we only have your email. Did you get our message?”

Well…no, I hadn’t checked my email in the car, because I was on the phone. I looked at my phone and indeed, there was a mail from United, apologizing for its past inattention to such a loyal customer, and promising to do better. Not to mention that the mail promised a free upgrade on my upcoming flight – flight 863, which was on time. Given the time and my current location (gleaned from my phone, which automatically broadcasts my location to every brand with which I’ve indicated I have a trusted relationship), I must be on my way, no? The email continued – click this link to accept the upgrade, choose my seat, order a special meal….you get the picture.

I give the counter attendant my mobile number so United can text me in the future, and after clearing security, I’m on the plane. And… As I often do when home is tantalizingly close, my seatbelt is securely fastened, and the plane is about to take off, I dozed off in anticipation of the upward lift which comprises a transcontinental journey’s opening act.

OK, daydream over. Might this actually happen? And not just for me, the dude with the “Internet influencer” designation, but for everyone?

Damn right it will.

Now, what really happened …. well, I checked in (the gate attendants were very pleasant), and I got on the plane (so were the flight attendants), and I settled in. And yes, I did fall asleep. No one at United knew who I was, or that I had just called the company out in front of 500 people (or tens of thousands repeatedly on Twitter over the past two years)…regardless, what did happen next is that I woke up.

And we were on the tarmac. And it was raining. And as I regained consciousness after my social media daydream, I heard the pilot apologizing – turns out the weather was not cooperating, and we’d have to turn off the engines. And wait.

Not United’s fault. I mean, who controls the weather, after all?

Six hours and one trip back to the gate later (see, I told you I’d get to that), United Flight 863 took off. I expect to land at SFO by 2.15 am, PST, fates willing.

But the whole experience got me thinking about what it might mean if a brand really had a relationship with each of its customers, leveraged over customer data, social nuance, and intelligent platform technology, and what it might mean if we, collectively as a culture, simply assumed this to be true.

And it struck me it’d be a lot like living in a small town – where everyone knows everyone’s business, all the time. And if that were true, well, maybe I wouldn’t have called out United in the first place, because that would have just been unfriendly. Especially if I knew United was listening.

And having never really lived in such a place, I wondered – is that a good thing? Or might we, as a society, be on a path where we learn to integrate the best parts of a small town – intimacy, connection, responsiveness – with the best of big city living – anonymity on demand, control over identity, privacy?

I think we’re about to find out. As I think all of you who made it to the end of this story know, we live in a time of great cultural change. It’s a story that fascinates me, and I hope I can spend a lot more time telling it.

11 thoughts on “We (Will) Live In A Small Big Town”

I have no doubt that you will be telling this story for many years to come. Fly safe. The future is waiting for you… and despite your recent experiences, some brands are listening to every friendly word.

John, so true this post is and your vision. It is the exact same vision I have with my company Loyaltize – maximizing the brand/consumer relationship. You crystallize it right here:

“But the whole experience got me thinking about what it might mean if a brand really had a relationship with each of its customers, leveraged over customer data, social nuance, and intelligent platform technology, and what it might mean if we, collectively as a culture, simply assumed this to be true.”

Not much is built yet, but I am still looking for a select few who fully grasp this and can build it out since I believe it is much bigger than Twitter. Thanks for putting words and an experience to it.

You’ve cited the potential assumption that brands are ‘publishers of content’. Actually in a social world, my view is that brands are the subject of the conversation, not the owners of it,

however much the platforms and brands themselves are deluding themselves and/ or us to the contrary. The graph owns the conversation and the graph is made up of hundreds of millions

of people still trying to define their digital homes in an environment where the same respect, ownership and privacy afforded their physical ones is being ignored. Current business models

presume the platforms and the advertisers own the graph, a colonial right to enter those homes by stealth, digital rape or force and so that model needs to flip 180 degrees. The Customer

is always right and the emphasis in my opinion should be for brands to work out how to earn our respect, such that they become increasingly part of our conversation. You are right about

the end game, but note the subtle difference in the journey. Respect cannot be taken, it has to be earnt and that works both ways.

2).

Trust:-

If I suddenly woke up one morning with a hangover from hell and in the middle of some saharan desert and there was just a stall selling Coca Cola, I would feel perfectly happy opening a

bottle, safe in the knowledge that it would taste as I expected and not cause me any harm. I would suggest that the majority of internet users do not currently trust any of the main

platform providers. (Some of whom, have been so abhorrently flagrant in their abuses of what trust we have vested that I’m not sure they deserve a resolution) I am also staggered for

instance that Coca Cola would risk the brand value earned over generations by aligning themselves anywhere near those organisations in their current guise. However, I do think that if the

business models of social networks were flipped 180 degrees and replicated the principles of one’s physical homes, villages and towns, based on common interest instead of location, then

the creation of content, value and aspiration would both allow for monetisation through underpinning that with a digital currency and likewise encourage a new age of global optimism and

sharing. (It would also make Hyperlocal make sense of course and either make AoL’s investment in Patch an embarassing mistake or help them redefine it into a content creation facility

that has true value.

The battle is for a Digital democracy vs the Digital Socialism/ Dictatorship path we are following. I don’t ‘like’ anything on Facebook because I see that as offering the world a free camera

into my own home. I think everyone else is starting to realise that they are all naive entrants to a Truman Show world where all the upside is in the hands of a few people who are

repeatedly proving they cannot be trusted. Once we establish that our digital homes are ours to trade and our content is our currency, then some of us who enjoy creating and

contributing might like to open up and deliver the advertisers wet dream. (The fabulous, but poor, train loving photographer in Chicago, might like the idea of a few cents from every

person that enjoys his images and articles about trains) If consumers could trust the platforms and the latter weren’t fuelled by a misguided business model and valuation driven greed,

then perhaps the trust they require could start to be achieved. In the meantime, they, the media and politicians who are increasingly beholded to the dark machine are all losing our trust

and just because 700m users have proven we all like to be connected, it doesn’t mean the wheels of the machines they inhabit are really turning in a sustainable way or that you can

treat brand loyalty as irrelevant or hide behind ‘failing forwards fast’. What if for example, the big brands who have entered the black whole on faith alone came to realise that a few million

‘likes’ is totally meaningless and even counter productive if the platform suffers a catastrophic viral rebellion based on a trigger we haven’t yet seen signs of or that in fact their

long-standing cache has suddenly started to spiral downwards and out of control. (See Aspiration below) A new entrant into the market could turn up like Facebook did and with the

benefit of hindsight, do it better, faster and with a more tangible consumer tie-in maybe; or perhaps one privacy abuse too many that touches a global and political nerve brings the whole

house tumbling down or at least sets all the world’s decent politicians to unite in protecting their democratic values, they are themselves apparently treating with the same contempt, the

platforms are treating us.

3).

Aspiration:-

Because we have a three way mexican stand-off between Apple, Google and Microsoft effectively dominating the world’s digital engine rooms with companies like Facebook, Twitter etc.

using their supply of fuel (social graph) to try and arrest a position at a higher level with the aforementioned or looking to create a new ship of their own on the one hand. And media

conglomerates, who blinked and misssed them leaving port on the other; I believe your nirvana is fundamentally screwed until the final battle is fought and won.

Traditionally, power has always resided with the world’s most successful brands; Coca Cola, Ford, Disney, BBC, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, Fiat, GE, Wal-Mart etc. etc. Now we are seeing

the ever so subtle pressure developing which was the inevitable result of the fact that one or more of the big three is supporting the digital fibre of those businesses and as we know, the

bigger the reliance, the larger the control. Collectively though, they all should be reminded that they are only in existence as a result of human aspiration. The founding entrepreneur’s

aspiration to change the world and the consumer’s aspiration to want to be better.

Social networks are destroying aspiration in my opinion and as brands succumb to ‘the light’ like flies to a UV lamp and in pursuit of short-term gain, they are no longer standing out from

the crowd and increasingly where once people looked up to them, the new flat environments simply force people to look across. How long before the only brands with any ‘reluctant’

reverance are the ones controlling the platforms and once glorious names are merely categories within a super-brand like Skynet or AGM?

My background for most of my career was as a Manager of some not so well known and some iconic Artistes/ Producers and I watch in horror as I see kids think the only route to fame

nowadays is by getting their tits done or queuing in line for a TV show, where a back catalog song is milked for yet more life and money and a dumbed down public pays to choose it’s

fodder for the coming year until we start all over. All routes via traditional sweat, A&R and truly lasting global talent all but closed off. Will kids aspire to a viral hit on YouTube and being

‘liked’ on Facebook if they’re still working the checkout at Wal-Mart and how will any of us be able to find talent outside of the machine if the only place it is distributed is within it and dominated by the big three and the media companies they can bring into line around or beneath them. In a world of so much noise, there is only so much human capacity for infinite choice and we need to have places where real talent can reach us honestly and organically. I think there is a gaping hole on the internet for a platform where technology meets media and that would provide the absolute safety valve we need to prevent the big brands dying in the social vortex and the three ‘Mexicans’ carving up the world between them and killing the oxygen supply to everyone that doesn’t comply. Aspiration only works when the top of the mountain is worth attaining. The absence of a truly elegant environment on the internet where brands are revered instead of made to look ordinary and where kids can believe that however they express themselves creatively, they may achieve heights unparalleled in history. The best way of persuading them has always been and will always be to buy music, art etc. and watch people get really rich. Facebook are currently focused on everyone knowing how rich they are getting on our content not encouraging a platform where the content we create is ours to share, trade and benefit from. Why should we create value for Facebook? Personally, I think it’s time for Mark to go and Sheryl to take over leading up to and after the IPO, when the beneficiaries of the business done right should be the pension funds of our children. At the moment Mark can still claim rightfully the creation of the world’s biggest change since the internet itself and even perhaps be forgiven for some of the ways he got there. But as an ongoing role model and safe guardian? No, certainly not… Facebook could provide a democratic mechanism to help the world discover talent, but trying to build, control and retain the media ‘head’ within their ‘long-tail’ technology platform is both an oxymoron and for reasons people can explore by visiting my blog, potentially also tresspassing on my IPR.

Always appreciate more followers and RT’s etc. on http://www.twitter.com/famebook for those that think my humble ramblings are worthwhile! Thank you John, I always appreciate yours…

Sorry formatting issues – Please delete or ignore previous version! (And this if you do thanks)

3 BIG Hurdles To John Battelle’s Internet Nirvana IMHO

1).

Respect:-

You’ve cited the potential assumption that brands are ‘publishers of content’. Actually in a social world, my view is that brands are the subject of the conversation, not the owners of it, however much the platforms and brands themselves are deluding themselves and/ or us to the contrary. The graph owns the conversation and the graph is made up of hundreds of millions of people still trying to define their digital homes in an environment where the same respect, ownership and privacy afforded their physical ones is being ignored. Current business models presume the platforms and the advertisers own the graph, a colonial right to enter those homes by stealth, digital rape or force and so that model needs to flip 180 degrees. The Customer is always right and the emphasis in my opinion should be for brands to work out how to earn our respect, such that they become increasingly part of our conversation. You are right about the end game, but note the subtle difference in the journey. Respect cannot be taken, it has to be earnt and that works both ways.

2).

Trust:-

If I suddenly woke up one morning with a hangover from hell and in the middle of some Saharan desert and there was just a stall selling Coca Cola, I would feel perfectly happy opening a bottle, safe in the knowledge that it would taste as I expected and not cause me any harm. I would suggest that the majority of internet users do not currently trust any of the main platform providers. (Some of whom, have been so abhorrently flagrant in their abuses of what trust we have vested that I’m not sure they deserve a resolution) I am also staggered for instance that Coca Cola would risk the brand value earned over generations by aligning themselves anywhere near those organisations in their current guise. However, I do think that if the business models of social networks were flipped 180 degrees and replicated the principles of one’s physical homes, villages and towns, based on common interest instead of location, then the creation of content, value and aspiration would both allow for monetisation through underpinning that with a digital currency and likewise encourage a new age of global optimism and sharing. (It would also make Hyperlocal make sense of course and either make AoL’s investment in Patch an embarrassing mistake or help them redefine it into a content creation facility that has true value.)

The battle is for a Digital democracy vs the Digital Socialism/ Dictatorship path we are following. I don’t ‘like’ anything on Facebook because I see that as offering the world a free camera into my own home. I think everyone else is starting to realise that they are all naive entrants to a Truman Show world where all the upside is in the hands of a few people who are repeatedly proving they cannot be trusted. Once we establish that our digital homes are ours to trade and our content is our currency, then some of us who enjoy creating and contributing might like to open up and deliver the advertisers wet dream. (The fabulous, but poor, train loving photographer in Chicago, might like the idea of a few cents from every
person that enjoys his images and articles about trains) If consumers could trust the platforms and the latter weren’t fuelled by a misguided business model and valuation driven greed, then perhaps the trust they require could start to be achieved. In the meantime, they, the media and politicians who are increasingly beholded to the dark machine are all losing our trust and just because 700m users have proven we all like to be connected, it doesn’t mean the wheels of the machines they inhabit are really turning in a sustainable way or that you can treat brand loyalty as irrelevant or hide behind ‘failing forwards fast’. What if for example, the big brands who have entered the black whole on faith alone came to realise that a few million ‘likes’ is totally meaningless and even counter productive if the platform suffers a catastrophic viral rebellion based on a trigger we haven’t yet seen signs of or that in fact their long-standing cache has suddenly started to spiral downwards and out of control. (See Aspiration below) A new entrant into the market could turn up like Facebook did and with the benefit of hindsight, do it better, faster and with a more tangible consumer tie-in maybe; or perhaps one privacy abuse too many that touches a global and political nerve brings the whole house tumbling down or at least sets all the world’s decent politicians to unite in protecting their democratic values, they are themselves apparently treating with the same contempt, the platforms are treating us.

3).

Aspiration:-

Because we have a three way mexican stand-off between Apple, Google and Microsoft effectively dominating the world’s digital engine rooms with companies like Facebook, Twitter etc. using their supply of fuel (social graph) to try and arrest a position at a higher level with the aforementioned or looking to create a new ship of their own on the one hand. And media conglomerates, who blinked and misssed them leaving port on the other; I believe your nirvana is fundamentally screwed until the final battle is fought and won. Traditionally, power has always resided with the world’s most successful brands; Coca Cola, Ford, Disney, BBC, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, Fiat, GE, Wal-Mart etc. etc. Now we are seeing the ever so subtle pressure developing which was the inevitable result of the fact that one or more of the big three is supporting the digital fibre of those businesses and as we know, the bigger the reliance, the larger the control. Collectively though, they all should be reminded that they are only in existence as a result of human aspiration. The founding entrepreneur’s aspiration to change the world and the consumer’s aspiration to want to be better. Social networks are destroying aspiration in my opinion and as brands succumb to ‘the light’ like flies to a UV lamp and in pursuit of short-term gain, they are no longer standing out from the crowd and increasingly where once people looked up to them, the new flat environments simply force people to look across. How long before the only brands with any ‘reluctant’ reverance are the ones controlling the platforms and once glorious names are merely categories within a super-brand like Skynet or AGM?

My background for most of my career was as a Manager of some not so well known and some iconic Artistes/ Producers and I watch in horror as I see kids think the only route to fame nowadays is by getting their tits done or queuing in line for a TV show, where a back catalog song is milked for yet more life and money and a dumbed down public pays to choose it’s fodder for the coming year until we start all over. All routes via traditional sweat, A&R and truly lasting global talent all but closed off. Will kids aspire to a viral hit on YouTube and being ‘liked’ on Facebook if they’re still working the checkout at Wal-Mart and how will any of us be able to find talent outside of the machine if the only place it is distributed is within it and dominated by the big three and the media companies they can bring into line around or beneath them. In a world of so much noise, there is only so much human capacity for infinite choice and we need to have places where real talent can reach us honestly and organically. I think there is a gaping hole on the internet for a platform where technology meets media and that would provide the absolute safety valve we need to prevent the big brands dying in the social vortex and the three ‘Mexicans’ carving up the world between them and killing the oxygen supply to everyone that doesn’t comply. Aspiration only works when the top of the mountain is worth attaining. The absence of a truly elegant environment on the internet where brands are revered instead of made to look ordinary and where kids can believe that however they express themselves creatively, they may achieve heights unparalleled in history. The best way of persuading them has always been and will always be to buy music, art etc. and watch people get really rich. Facebook are currently focused on everyone knowing how rich they are getting on our content not encouraging a platform where the content we create is ours to share, trade and benefit from. Why should we create value for Facebook? Personally, I think it’s time for Mark to go and Sheryl to take over leading up to and after the IPO, when the beneficiaries of the business done right should be the pension funds of our children. At the moment Mark can still claim rightfully the creation of the world’s biggest change since the internet itself and even perhaps be forgiven for some of the ways he got there. But as an ongoing role model and safe guardian? No, certainly not… Facebook could provide a democratic mechanism to help the world discover talent, but trying to build, control and retain the media ‘head’ within their ‘long-tail’ technology platform is both an oxymoron and for reasons people can explore by visiting my blog, potentially also trespassing on my IPR.

With friends we have often spoken on the topic of movies. According to some it is even a waste of time, but for me it’s not happening. I think the benefit of every thing can be found, but for this we need the right people, circumstances and mood. For me movies should be seen as a means to achieve the objective, not as a goal. Greetings from me to you soon

As someone who has lived in both small towns and large cities might I offer an alternative outcome of a future society that takes the worse parts of a small town: the isolation, back-stabbing, and nepotism; and the worse parts of a big city: the crime, loneliness and constant competition. I agree that the small town metaphor is apt, but if you haven’t lived in a small town you might be unaware of what un-idyllic places they can sometimes be. I for one hope that any future society that plays itself out online might more closely follows today’s IRL society where if you say something nasty in mixed company, there is a very real chance that it could come back to bite you in the a$$. In general, a lot of savvy brands online already get this. What worries me more is the less savvy brands (and the million + one “personal” brands) that haven’t quite gotten there yet.

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